wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Ecumenical patriarch refutes "fanatical" challenges against dialogue

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> For immediate release: 18 February 2010

"TRUTH DOES NOT FEAR DIALOGUE," SAYS ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH

Indifference in regard to Christian unity is not an option for the
disciples of Jesus, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew has stated in an
encyclical issued on the occasion of the Sunday of Orthodoxy.

"It is not possible for the Lord to agonize over the unity of His  disciples
and for us to remain indifferent about the unity of all Christians,"
Bartholomew wrote in the encyclical. The Sunday of Orthodoxy is
commemorated this year on 21 February.

The encyclical refutes "fanatical" challenges brought against theological
dialogues among different Orthodox churches and against ecumenical
contacts with the wider community of Christians by "certain circles that
exclusively claim for themselves the title of zealot and defender of
Orthodoxy."

"They speak condescendingly of every effort for reconciliation among
divided Christians and restoration of their unity as purportedly being
'the pan-heresy of ecumenism' without providing the slightest evidence
that, in its contacts with non-Orthodox, the Orthodox Church has abandoned
or denied the doctrines of the Ecumenical Councils and of the Church
Fathers," Bartholomew criticizes.

"The truth does not fear dialogue, because truth has never been endangered
by dialogue," the encyclical letter states. "When in our day all people
strive to resolve their differences through dialogue, Orthodoxy cannot
proceed with intolerance and extremism."

"I am very grateful to the Ecumenical Patriarch for his strong commitment
to dialogue and the unity of the church, despite the many pressures from
fundamentalist circles among Orthodox believers" said the Rev. Dr Olav
Fykse Tveit, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in
response to the encyclical on 18 February.

"This encyclical," Tveit said, "reminds me of another famous text: the  1920
encyclical letter in which the Ecumenical Patriarch proposed the
foundation of a fellowship of churches, providing a major impulse for the
formation of the WCC."

The Feast of Orthodoxy is celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent in the
Eastern Orthodox tradition. Originally commemorating the defeat of
iconoclasm in the 9th century, the Sunday of Orthodoxy has gradually come
to be understood in a more general sense as a feast in honour of the true
faith.

Full text of the patriarchal encyclical:

http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?id=2267&rid=f_15592&mid=1939&aC= c416b25e&jumpurl=-1

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness
and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of
churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 349 Protestant,
Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 560 million
Christians in over 110 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman
Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit,
from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.